Thursday, February 8, 2018

Walking to the train this morning, I noticed the long grass verge next to the footpath, as if for the first time. They are upgrading the train near my house, so for the last three months I have had to walk for ten minutes to the 2nd closest train station. It is summer here, and so I had my slip on shoes on to keep cool.

On a whim, I took my shoes off, and walked on the grass instead of the footpath. My 900m walking commute suddenly became a walk in the park. #shoesOff The footpath in bare feet seemed alien and unfriendly. The grass, while uneven and coarse, I realised was gently massaging my feet.

I realised how dull my feet felt in shoes on pavement. While barefoot on grass, I felt more alive, more in touch with nature, more normal.

Then a young woman, headphones on, frightened me as she scooted past on the footpath, walking briskly. Left Right Left Right, she was soon gone up the road, as I ambled along enjoying the tickle of the grass on my soles.

Aha. I was having a value moment. In that choice between grass and concrete, between fast and slow, between smooth and bumpy, we were each finding our value. Hers was quick and smooth and efficient, while mine was bumpy, slow and (like an Aussie wit) laconical. Her value was functional while mine was pleasureable. Hers was a means to an end, while mine was an end in itself.

Monday, I will probably be scooting down the footpath, on a cooler day, socks and shoes on.

Value is thus an individual choice, in a perceived context, between value dimensions eg function vs pleasure, each according to their current momentary needs. That choice for me happened in an instant today, but not occurred to me over the previous three months.

Thursday, February 16, 2017

- Value of smartphones - see draft case here
- Value of NBN; national infrastructure
- Value of new products (denting the universe); Apple and iPhone

The #LBOV is a collaborative writing project at Github, but the pics need to be on a URL, so I will post the pics here for linking from Github. Please add you Value stories as a link to this post, or other #LBOV posts on this blog.

Method

Getting Started

Lat/Long: I use a Mac, and its Map program provides an easy way to turn an address into a Lat Long. You can also use maps.google.com.

Spreadsheet. I used a Google Sheet. You can also load data into excel (csv) and drop into Google Maps.

Google Maps. You need a Google login for this.

Making the Map

Create Google Sheet (or spreadsheet) with four columns

A. Address B.Lat C.Long D. NBN Status – in rollout (yes/no)

Get the Lat Long. In Apple Maps, pick an address, Drop a pin = Right Click. Click (i).
Copy address into Column A. Copy Lat/ Long in Col B,C.
Alternatively, in Google Maps, right click What's here to get the Lat/Long of any point. You can also find a Lat/Long with Google Maps API; by inserting and address into: http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json?address=ADDR where ADDR = 12carlislecrescent,hughesdale,vic eg Link

Friday, January 27, 2017

I am writing a 75 page book on Value to publish by the end of this year (2017).

Will be $10 for the plain black and white text copy (eBook at Amazon).

Will be $20 for the colourful eBook, with videos, photos, exercises and more.

Will be free for the Community Version, where you earn a copy by contributing your value stories.

If you want to be part of the writing process, either:

- comment below with your email, and tell me "what do you value?", or
- make a three minute video and post the link below to the question "what does value mean to you"
- the writing process will be a public community exercise at Github.

By posting, you agree your content can be included (royalty free) in the above books. All included entries will earn the author, 10 copies of the book, so be sure to leave your email.

Add your comments to the wiki or fork the repository. Add your questions about value either in comments below or at Github.

Thursday, January 19, 2017

On the eve of the 45th Presidency, it seems appropriate to reflect on the potential for innovation to create and/or destroy value. [1]

I have long argued here that innovation is doing new things that create value. But many new things destroy value. For instance, a tweet saying a President-Elect will cancel a $5B contract sends a company share price down as investors price that information into a stock.

It is harder to create value with new things. At ANDS, we work with Universities to promote the new idea of #openscience and data sharing as a value creator. The idea takes time, effort and investment to implement, which are costs. These costs have uncertain returns, so may create or destroy value. As Gilder suggests, the entrepreneur takes a leap into the future ("Faith of the Futurist", Wall Street Journal, 1999), reaching out to grab some uncertain future potential value.

Of course, Schumpeter talks of "creative destruction" (1942, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy). So a new industry or product negatively affects what came before. Cars puts horses out of work, as did farm machinery. Agricultural labour fell from 70% of the population to low single digits (say 4-5%) as machinery and mechanisation raised the amount of work a farmer can do. The losses of jobs are destruction of value. The raised productivity of the remaining agricultural workers add value. Similarly, Rogers in Diffusion of Innovation (1962, 2004), quotes Machiavelli, saying (I paraphrase), a new idea has the lukewarm interest of those who may benefit and the criticism (resistance) of those who benefit under the old regime. Thus new things benefit and harm people. New things, new ideas, new products both create and destroy value. The value of those benefiting under the old regime is destroyed (transferred) to those benefitting under the new regime.

The trick for innovation is when there is more than a zero-sum game. When the benefits outweight the costs. Generally we can see this through GDP as those benefits and costs are turned into dollar equivalents. However, value is not measurable in dollars alone. Social, emotional and other types of value exist alongside economic value (see Value Dimensions). So people are concerned, worried, anxious about the new Presidency and his potential actions. Such emotions are temporary negative value, that may be converted into economic value, with consumer outlook an intermediate measure.

What comes to pass, we will have to wait and see. For me, I have set my expectations so low, that I may be pleasantly surprised when a new President does something half sensible. New perspectives bring opportunity for new ideas, new interpretations, new approaches. It remains to be seen whether these will create or destroy value. There is always another election in four years (let us hope).

There is always risk and uncertainty in new things. So let us not judge a person by their words, (which fade away like flowers, the wind, or a wave lapping on the beach). Let us judge a person by their deeds, that will last. Let us let our emotions assess ones words, and tell us whether to like, trust or resist their actions. I have noticed that new leaders arrive full of new ideas, but a real test is what can be put into action, as those ideas have to pass through the value filters of those affected both positively (the promoters) and negatively (the resistors) to those ideas. This is the social process of creating and diffusing an innovation. A process whereby the value in the idea is assessed by all those affected by it.

[1] I believe we have no word for something new, destroying value (maybe 'denovation', Valman 2009).

Monday, August 8, 2016

The Australian Tax Office (ATO) has recently provided me with a dataset to examine innovation in Australia. I am interested in economic activity over time and by location. Previously the ATO has provided corporate data, but companies are seen only as Australian, and not having a point or multi-point location. Employees however have an address which provides a point location.

Thus the ATO has kindly provided all the salaries and wages data (for 12 years), and sole trader data, by fine detailed industry and location. Sole Trader's have 500 industries and employees have 1500 occupations. Australian locations, while requested at postcode level, were provided at a statistical area level (SA4) which splits Australia into 100 regions of similar population. Cities have many zones, while the country has large zones.

The raw data is available here at data.gov. I have loaded the data into an online database at Nectar, which provides free cloud services for Australian Researchers. Preliminary analysis is taking place at a website set up for that purpose here. For SELECT access to the database please contact me.

Thursday, February 4, 2016

After attending a Data Visualisation workshop at University of Melbourne this week (Resbaz 2016; D3 Visualisation workshop, plot.ly workshop; Thanks Isabel and Errol), I have tried to plot graphically the FTTN vs FTTP perspectives. See my outputs here from this week's workshops.

Through playing with the model (available on figshare (v5)), the most important variables seemed to be:

The dots are smoothed into colour sections. Blue sections where the assumptions favour FTTN (preferred by the Liberals Party, in conjunction with HFC, some FTTP and other wireless tech for Regions and Remote) and orange sections where the assumptions favour FTTP (preferred by Labor Party). Live version of image, with mouseover datapoints at: Figshare (v5) to download, and Github to view.

at 2% impact on household (HH) GDP ($70k household) then FTTN is highly favourable, even if only short two year delay. The HH GDP annual impact $1,400pa is much larger than around $2,000 difference between FTTN and FTTP capex and dwarfs OPEX and revenue differences.

at 1% impact on HH GDP, a four year delay in FTTP installation is sufficient to favour FTTN over FTTP.

at 0% impact on HH GDP, then FTTP is favourable even with long delays to FTTP. At higher interest rates, then a shorter delay for FTTP is equivalent to FTTN.

In previous cost benefit analyses of NBN, a 0.5 - 1.0% impact on GDP was sufficient to make the NBN NPV positive - ie benefits exceed costs, accounting for time impact of cashflows. At these lower household impacts, FTTP is preferred, but where there are immediate significant household GDP impacts ( ie more than 1%) then FTTN is preferred. Long delays in FTTP encourage more use of FTTN, as do higher interest rates.

NB: outstanding and unaccounted for issues were described in the last post, eg cost of replacing FTTN at the end of its perhaps 10 year life; the excess benefit of FTTP over FTTN, and so on.

Conclusion:
FTTN and FTTP are only as good as the assumptions that assert their case. There are many cases, listed above where FTTN is better than FTTP for GDP over 20 years. Where the NBN impact on household GDP is significant, this prompts an earlier install of FTTN.